Blog Post

Music is a beautiful thing. Many audiophiles spend a lot of time listening to their favorite songs over and over again, memorizing every word. What if we told you that there are some famous songs out there with incredibly bizarre backgrounds? Songs like The Beatle’s Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds or Total Eclipse of the Heart took listeners by storm and are still incredibly popular today!

However, there is more than meets the ear than a song about drugs or love. Some song’s backgrounds are just plain disturbing. Here is our list of the top five songs with bizarre, true stories behind them.

Lucy in the Skies with Diamonds by The Beatles

“Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
with tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
a girl with kaleidoscope eyes”

This song is obviously about LSD, right? Wrong! “Lucy,” who inspired this song was a classmate of Lennon’s son, Julian. One day, the boy came home with a picture he had sketched of his classmate Lucy. Julian titled the piece, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Even John Lennon was bewildered when fans started speculating about the song. In an interview with The Rolling Stones, he mentioned, “I didn’t even see it in the label. I didn’t look at the initials.”

“Sweet Caroline,
good times never seemed so good.
I’d be inclined,
to believe they never would.
But now I…”

You probably have the song stuck in your head just from reading the title. Sweet Caroline is one of my favorite road trip songs. Everyone loves it and screams the chorus at the top of their lungs in the car. What was Diamond signing about? No one knew until forty years after it was released. He revealed he found a photograph of a girl on a pony and was struck by the innocence of the picture. This girl was Caroline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s daughter.

Billie Jean by Michael Jackson

“Billie Jean is not my lover.She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one.But the kid is not my son.”

This song is fantastic with a beat that makes you want to dance and lyrics that are so fun to sing. This song has quite a disturbing history though. Jackson based it on a woman who used to stalk him. One day, this woman sent a letter to Michael Jackson stating that he was the father of “one of her twins.” More and more letters arrived addressed from her as well as a parcel with a gun requesting that he commit suicide.

“And I need you now tonight
And I need you more than ever
And if you only hold me tight
We’ll be holding on forever”

If you take the lyrics at face value, is just an ordinary song about two people in love. For anyone who has seen the video, you undoubtedly became confused at the seemingly unconnected story the director presented. The truth of the song’s meaning, somehow even more bizarre, is that it’s about vampires. In fact, the original title of the song was Vampires in Love. Does that lend more insight into the music video? Not so much.

Save the Last Dance for Me by The Drifters

“’Cause don’t forget who’s taking you home,
And in whose arm’s you’re gonna be,
So darlin’
Save the last dance for me.”

One evening, Doc Pomus was looking through a box of old memories, when he found a wedding invitation. In seeing this card, visions of his wedding came rushing back of his new wife dancing with his brother Raoul while Doc, who had polio, sat watching in his wheelchair. After recounting this memory, Doc Pomus spent all night writing down the lyrics to this song on the back of the invitation.

Which songs with bizarre origins do you know about? See what’s in store at a Bookmans near you and you may discover some crazy songs yourself! We buy, sell, and trade too.